Page 90 of Alex Cross Must Die

A third agent came through the door and walked straight to the head of the table. A sturdy-looking woman with a no-nonsense attitude. Naomi saw Bain push his chair back toward the door to hisprivate office. The female agent stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder and spun him back around.

“Mr. Bain, I’m Special Agent Brita Stans, and you’re under arrest for wire fraud, tax evasion, bribery and corruption, and violation of New York State campaign finance laws. We have a warrant to search the premises. Stand up, please.”

Bain rose slowly out of his chair with a bitter scowl. Stans produced a set of handcuffs from under her jacket. “Face the wall.”

The agent clapped the cuffs onto his wrists, then started marching him toward the door. Bain twisted against the cuffs and glared at the two executives sitting next to Naomi. They were both staring intently into their coffee cups. “You’re mylawyers!” Bain shouted. “Dosomething!” Neither man looked up.

One of the agents at the front of the room grabbed Bain’s other arm. “Let’s leave your lawyers out of this, Mr. Bain,” Stans said. “For all we know, they’re co-conspirators.”

As soon as her boss was escorted out of the conference room, Naomi slipped through the door into the main space. All across the vast office floor, she could see more agents pulling files and hard drives out of cubicles while employees stood against the walls, texting furiously. Her heart was pounding, but mostly with relief. She definitely wouldn’t have to finish her presentation.

Looking across to the nearby lobby, Naomi saw a woman in a dark business suit standing in front of the elevator bank. She was attractive and fit, her blond hair neatly smoothed and tied behind her head. As the agents escorted Bain over, the woman stepped forward and flashed a badge in front of his face.

“Mr. Bain,” she said, “I’m Detective Lieutenant Helene Grey, NYPD. I need to advise you of your rights.”

CHAPTER 103

THE EXPRESS RIDEdown from the top floor of the Bain Building took thirty seconds—long enough for Grey to make sure that her suit was straight and her gun properly holstered. Bain and Agent Stans stood to her left. Behind her were two NYPD uniforms and a pair of detectives from the Financial Crimes Task Force. They would officially share the collar.

When the doors opened, Stans held on to Bain and nodded at Grey. “You first, Detective Lieutenant.”

Grey nodded back. She took a breath and stepped out into a storm of camera flashes. The sleek marble lobby of Bain’s headquarters was packed with reporters, all clamoring for a quote. Somebody had obviously alerted the media to the time and place of the high-profile perp walk. The sound echoed against the lobby’s glass windows and marble walls. Insane.What a circus!

Shelbi Scott of Channel 4 was already doing a live stand-up report, using the procession as a backdrop. “The biggest financial takedown since Madoff,” Grey heard her saying. Other reporters crowded frantically along the barriers and thrust mics and mobile phones in Bain’s direction.

“Will you take the mayor down with you, Mr. Bain?”

“Will you declare Chapter 11?”

“Mr. Bain, is it true that you’re still profiting from porn?”

“Are you hoping for a prison with tennis courts?”

Grey heard a second commotion from overhead. She looked up. On the mezzanine level above the lobby, hundreds of Bain employees were crammed along the railing. Some were applauding.

As she led the way through the media mob, Grey kept her eyes straight ahead and her expression neutral. She maintained her poker face when she spotted Holmes, Marple, and Poe leaning against a column near the revolving doors to the street.

You’re welcome,Poe mouthed as their eyes met.

Grey pretended not to notice.

CHAPTER 104

POE AND HISpartners watched from the elegant plaza in front of the skyscraper as a five-car caravan escorted billionaire Huntley Bain off for processing.

“One domino down,” said Marple.

“If the mayor is smart,” said Holmes, “he’s packing already.”

In the hours since juicy details from the spreadsheets had been mysteriously leaked to a financial blogger, the press had already traced the dots from Bain’s accounts to the campaign coffers of Mayor Felix Rollins. The maximum allowable contribution was fifty-one hundred dollars within a four-year election cycle, the blogger pointed out. Bain was going to have trouble explaining many multiples of that amount, no matter how elaborately the donations had been disguised.

New Yorkers had already drawn the connection between the mayor’s visits to Bain’s Caribbean villa and the quick approvals for his projects all over New York. But now there was hard evidence of actual bribery. A classic quid pro quo. The relationship between Bain and Rollins didn’t just look cozy. It looked criminal.

“Think Boolin might get caught in the undertow?” asked Poe.

“Don’t count on it,” said Marple. “He’s a pretty strong swimmer.”

Poe knew that Police Commissioner Boolin was not a fan of their firm, starting from the day they’d cornered him in his driveway about the Sloane Stone case, and especially not since they’d upstaged him at the press conference. The fact that they’d recently collared the Siglik brothers and solved another high-profile crime spree didn’t make them any more popular at One Police Plaza. Boolin was not the type to share credit gracefully. Not with the state police. Not with the FBI. And definitely not with a team of smart-ass PIs.

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